Author: marionvermazen

I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter and genealogist. I am retired after working for almost 30 years in the Computer Industry. I live in Reno, Nevada with my husband Duke.

Gold Country Weekend

I had a great weekend.  Friends of ours have a second home up in the gold country and they invited Duke and I to spend the weekend with them. Friday night we took the scenic route up to Sacramento along the delta. We stopped at  Isleton  for dinner at the River’s Edge Cafe. We had a great home made lunch  there a few months ago and the home made pasta we had Friday night was also delicious.

On Saturday we all went to the Empire Gold Mine. It is a state park now but it is the site of  the oldest, largest, and richest gold mine in California. We toured the house and explored several of the old mine buildings including the black smith shop and the room containing a scale model of the more than 300 miles of tunnels in the mine. I’m always fascinated by these kinds of places where you can get a real sense of the technology and the history.

Saturday night after dinner we all sat on the back deck and enjoyed looking at the stars through Ray’s telescope. I got to see Jupiter and four of its moon. It was very cool.  It was a very relaxing wonderful weekend.

Capitalism must be Humanized

I subscribe to 164 feeds in Bloglines. It is almost impossible to read all of them and stay current so I have created my A1 list that I always enjoy reading and always read first before any other blogs. There are 11 blogs on my A1 list.  One of the blogs on my A1 list is Speak up by Richard Edelman. Edelman is president of the world’s largest independent public relations firm.  He only posts occasionally but his posts are always thought provoking and he is such a good communicator that you can understand why he is as successful as he is.

In his latest post Edelman discusses the role of PR in the future and how it fits into the way markets are changing and communications is evolving. I especially liked the paragraph which he introduced with a quote from futurist Andrew Zolli, “the consumer must be treated differently, allowed to become part of the
“experience economy.” He believes that capitalism must be humanized”. This is at the heart of what I believe about successful customer support and is part of what I hope to create and deliver at Intuit.

 

Intuit Blogs

I’m sure you are all dying to know if I made it to work on time today 🙂  Yep, I did. Instead of the hour and 15 minutes it took yesterday it only took 40 minutes  today so I was early which I much prefer.

It was quite a productive day and I discovered two more Intuit blogs. I already regularly read the Official Quickbooks Online Weblog.   The Rental Property Manager group has also just started a an official blog.  Both of these are group blogs. On the Rental Property Manager Blog they are trying out the idea of pointing users to the product forum to make comments. It will be interesting to see how it works. Group blogs like these and the Tom Peters Weblog have a different flavor than individual blogs but I still enjoy reading them. I think they are strongest when the personalities of the individuals and of the team come through.

I’m also going to enjoy reading the blog one of my co-workers has started.  Christine Rimer’s  blog chronicles the  progress in creating a Quicken team blog. These are exciting times. It will be very interesting to see what kind of an impact blogging has. 

My First Day at Intuit

Today was my first day at Intuit. I did all the usual first day things like spend the day  in orientation and have a meeting with my boss. But the day started out horribly.  There is nothing like being late to your first day at a new job. I was supposed to meet my boss at 8 before orientation and instead barely got there by 8:30 when orientation started.  I just totally misjudged how long it would take. I allowed 45 minutes and it actually took about an hour and 15 minutes. There must have been an accident because traffic was awful.   Of course this wasn’t really the end of the world or anything  and my boss was very nice about it but I really hate it when I screw up. As I was walking up to the reception area all I could think was don’t let your first words to your new boss on your first day at Intuit be I’m sorry.

I have a meeting tomorrow morning at 8:00 and I’m planning to get there at 7:30!